A rare and important Green Glass Five-Lobed Bowl, Persia, first half 10th century

the body of translucent deep emerald-green glass which has been sagged or slumped over a lobed mould and then cold-worked on the wheel, the body fashioned as five lobes of equal size in imitation of a five-petalled flower, the foot-ring cut, ground and polished with a recessed base with two concentric overlapping discs in relief, no pontil mark, the rim ground down to form a flattened top edge, the interior polished smooth, the convex outer walls selectively worked and cut away leaving a frieze of five panels framed by a continuous border which steps up and down between the lobes, within these borders and occupying each lobe is a running quadruped in profile with a single counter-sunk eye and long ears or horns flattened behind the head, the turned-back tail with wedge-shaped tip contributes to a sense of animation fortified by the extended forelegs and hindlegs which express springing movement from right to left, the borders and animals all slant-cut in counter-sunk relief with hatched detail in transverse parallel cuts to the tails, bellies, backs and hooves

Once broken and repaired, with small areas of infill made of a resin compound of green colour to match glass, in overall good condition, as viewed.
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This rare, beautiful and previously unrecorded bowl from a private collection, is one of only four lobed coloured glass bowls from the medieval Islamic period known to exist.

related examples

Three (including the present example) are of deep luminous emerald-green colour, and one is of opaque milky turquoise. The turquoise-coloured bowl, which is the best known of the group, is in the Treasury of San Marco, Venice (inv. no.140; Carboni and Whitehouse 2001, pp.176-177, no.83) whilst the other two bowls are in the Shoso-in, Todaiji temple, Nara, Japan (Hayashi, R., The Silk Road and Shoso-in, Tokyo, 1975, p.75, fig.78 in colour) and the Corning Museum of Glass, New York (inv. no.55.1.136; ibid., pp.188-189, no.93). The former are both in pristine condition having probably entered treasury collections as early as the tenth century; the latter is fragmentary with as much as sixty percent missing and restored. The present example has some repair and some small losses filled in with a resin compound of complimentary colour, but the overall condition is remarkable, and the translucency and legibility of the decorated surface is outstanding.

A further six-lobed bowl of clear colourless glass in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, can also be associated to the group (Jenkins 1983, p.24, no.22); whilst an additional list of opaque turquoise pieces relating to the San Marco bowl are listed by Carboni, including: a perfume bottle in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. no.10.130.2649; see Jenkins 1986, no.21); two pitchers, in the Gemeente-museum, The Hague (inv. no.OG01-1930),and the British Museum (OA 1945.10-17.260; Pinder-Wilson in Tait, H., ed., Five Thousand Years of Glass, London, 1991, p.128, no.160); and two bowls in The Corning Museum of Glass (inv. no.69.1.32 and 71.1.23).

dating

The San Marco and Shoso-in bowls come with some historical documentation, although not all of it is completely reliable. The treasure-house of the Todai-ji Temple at Nara, known as the Shoso-in, was consecrated in 756, and a further influx of objects entered the building in 950 when transferred from another shrine at the complex (Carboni and Whitehouse 2001, p.189). This gives us a terminus ante quem for the Nara bowl of 950.  The San Marco bowl has fancy gem-set and filigree gold mounts which can be dated on stylistic grounds to the tenth century and are from Byzantium (there are some later further embellishments to the bowl as well). Although the San Marco bowl is reputed to have been gifted to the Venetian Doge in 1472 by Uzun Hasan (r.1453-78) of the Aqqoyunlu confederacy of Tabriz, it seems more likely that the object entered the treasury by a less respectable channel, namely as part of the haul of booty from Constantinople looted by the unruly Crusader army of 1204; and that the bowl constituted part-payment (along with other looted objects, such as the famous bronze horses from the Hippodrome) to the incumbent Doge who was part-sponsoring this ungodly godly enterprise.  It would make sense that the tenth-century mounts were added to the object during its sojourn in Byzantium and that it journeyed from there to Venice.  Although none of the above affords us a wholly reliable fixed date, we do have a post ante quem of 950 for the Nara bowl which allows us to ascribe the group with some degree of confidence to the first half of the tenth century.

technique

The first impression on handling this bowl is of its weight. The glass is heavy, unusually heavy for Persian glass. The reason relates both to the way that it is made and the intention of the craftsman who made it. First, whilst the majority of Persian glass is free-blown or mould-blown, this bowl has certainly been formed over a mould; the regularity and smoothness of the lobed interior would not have been possible otherwise. By this process a disc of glass is sagged or slumped whilst in a hot workable state over a lobed form and then allowed to cool to the shape of the mould. This technique is similar to that used by potters when striving to make a lobed or faceted vessel in soft clay. Once the glass is lifted off the mould, the glass-blower, or perhaps a specialist decorator in the studio, begins to work the surface using the wheel, grinding and polishing the foot and cold-working the outer walls into the desired design of running animals in raised borders. The result is a tour de force of design and execution. Surely, this was a luxury object destined for a person of high rank and considerable means.

simulation of jade

The thickness of the walls was necessary to withstand the considerable pressure of the cutting wheel. The highest point of the decoration probably constitutes the original surface (Jenkins 1983, p.24) though the height of the foot may have been the initial thickness of the disc. But why did the carver stop there? Why did he not reduce the walls further? It would have been quite possible and practical and would have afforded the carver an opportunity to display his skills further (certainly the medieval carvers of rock crystal did not hold back, grinding walls down to a millimetre thickness). The answer is that it was evidently a conscious decision to retain weight to give the bowl the appearance of another material, most probably jade. The fact that the lobed form follows a Chinese prototype lends further support to this argument. Carved jade was a rare luxury outside China at this time and the high price that it would have commanded in the market would have been a major incentive to the glassmaker.

Another consideration that may or may not have a bearing on this line of argument is the enigmatic inscription "Khorasan" on the San Marco bowl. Scholars have long debated the significance of this inscription and have concluded unanimously that it does not indicate the place of production. As Carboni observes: "Significantly, Khorasan is the region in which turquoise is mined, and the colour of the bowl closely resembles that of the mineral. It has been suggested, therefore, that the inscription is a fraudulent attempt to pass off the glass bowl as a spectacular piece of turquoise" (Carboni and Whitehouse 2001, p.177). This would also fit with what we know from contemporary literary sources. Numerous passages in contemporary Persian and Arabic texts on mineralogy refer to the intentional faking of precious stones and pearls, principally by glassmakers. The fraudsters sought profit even unto China, where medieval records make reference to unscrupulous traders passing off Syrian glass as precious stones (Jenkins, M., and M. Keene, Islamic Jewelery in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1982, p.28; and Hobson, R.L., "On Chinese Cloisonné Enamel." The Burlington Magazine, 21 (1912), p.138).

conclusion

The present bowl is a masterpiece of medieval glass production. Adopting the painfully laborious technique of abrading the surface to form patterns and designs, the maker has created a high polish that is both pleasing to the eye and sensous to the touch. The lobed walls and lotus-form shape evoke the image of a flower opening its petals, whilst the luminous green would have reminded the owner of precious jades and emeralds and of the luxurious association of exotic objects traded along the Silk Road.